December 2013 Portraits

[Ari]

This is absolutely wonderful. I guess the only light you had was the one coming from the window, how did you meter?

Thank you, Raffay.
I use an incident meter, and point the dome back toward the camera; for this photo, it read f5.6 at 1/2 second, so I used f8 at 1 second, since the lens is an f6.3.
I metered each person, they were about the same, and applied the reading directly to the lens controls.
When scanning, made sure that the highlight on my mother-in-law was tamed to a middle grey.
The rest of the adjustments were done in Lightroom, where I can tweak the shadows (very necessary here) to where I want them.

One trick with window light is to use a room which has other windows or lightly colored walls. An ideal room has an ideal amount of additional light to fill in the shadows. Also, we need to place the subjects at the ideal distance from the window so that the lighting is balanced.

Oh, to have ideal conditions. To get enough room here, I had to remove the facing sofa and use my shortest lens.
The next nearest window is about 30ft to camera right.
Still, I prefer these conditions, with natural light, to a well-lit studio scene.

[Raffay]

Thank you, Raffay.
I use an incident meter, and point the dome back toward the camera; for this photo, it read f5.6 at 1/2 second, so I used f8 at 1 second, since the lens is an f6.3.
I metered each persons, they were about the same, and applied the reading directly to the lens controls.
When scanning, made sure that the highlight on my mother-in-law was tamed to a middle grey.
The rest of the adjustments were done in Lightroom, where I can tweak the shadows (very necessary here) to where I want them.



Oh, to have ideal conditions. To get enough room here, I had to remove the facing sofa and use my shortest lens.
The next nearest window is about 30ft to camera right.
Still, I prefer these conditions, with natural light, to a well-lit studio scene.

You have to teach me how to control highlights while scanning, and how do you manage shadows in LR. When you have time, and do pass on my regards to your in-laws they seem like a wonderful couple

[fuegocito]

This is really lovely Ari, well done! (referring to your in-laws shot )

[Ken Lee]

Thank you, Raffay.
I use an incident meter, and point the dome back toward the camera;... in Lightroom, where I can tweak the shadows (very necessary here) to where I want them.

Perhaps I've misunderstood.

An incident meter (if we simply point it at the camera) will give us an averaged exposure. The high values may be overexposed and the low values may be underexposed. If the subject brightness range is mild, then we won't exceed the range of the film, but if the scene is contrasty, we will.

Another approach is to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights. Either the Zone System or BTZS will work nicely.

[BradS]

Sisters
4x5 Crown Graphic, 135mm Optar, hand held, RF focused

[jcoldslabs]

An incident meter (if we simply point it at the camera) will give us an averaged exposure. The high values may be overexposed and the low values may be underexposed. If the subject brightness range is mild, then we won't exceed the range of the film, but if the scene is contrasty, we will.

I switched from straight incident metering to spot metering for this reason a couple of years ago. It may have been user error, but I was not getting the exposures I wanted using an incident meter. Clearly it can be done since Ari's photo above has wonderful tonality, but for some reason my incident meter was giving me slight underexposure vis à vis the shadow densities I was aiming for.

Like most things in the photographic process consistency is key. Had I kept on with my incident meter I would have learned to adjust my exposure index to achieve the desired results. But I realized I wanted more information about the tonal range of my subjects for the purposes of determining N +/- development, and spot metering tells me more about the scene brightness range than a single incident reading does.

Jonathan

[ostrygad]

long time no see long time no posting..
not sure if this been presented here..anyway.

crown graphic, 4x5, ektar 127mm.
Attachment 106556

w nieco innej aranżacji ale...było na voal.pl ?

[Ari]

You have to teach me how to control highlights while scanning, and how do you manage shadows in LR. When you have time, and do pass on my regards to your in-laws they seem like a wonderful couple

Hi Raffay,
Some very good scanning tips are found on Ken Lee's website; just bring your high values down until there's enough detail in them. You can always increase the high values in post-processing, but it's very hard to restore them if they're blown out in scanning.
And like anything else, I had to learn LR and how to incorporate it into my way of working. It turns out that it's a very easy and precise tool for adjusting most kinds of photos.
I now use PS for dust removal and re-sizing, and LR for everything else.

This is really lovely Ari, well done! (referring to your in-laws shot )

Thank you very much, Robert.

[Ari]

Perhaps I've misunderstood.

An incident meter (if we simply point it at the camera) will give us an averaged exposure. The high values may be overexposed and the low values may be underexposed. If the subject brightness range is mild, then we won't exceed the range of the film, but if the scene is contrasty, we will.

Another approach is to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights. Either the Zone System or BTZS will work nicely.

That average exposure is still a measure of the light falling on the subject, not the light reflected from the subject.
Everyone has their way of working; I've used the same incident meter since day 1, and most times, whether I point it at the camera or at the light source, my exposure is pretty accurate.
I've never been off in exposing transparencies or negs, at least not because of the meter.
Studio settings demand you pay more attention to shadows and/or lighting ratios, but daylight seems to like the incident meter.

I switched from straight incident metering to spot metering for this reason a couple of years ago. It may have been user error, but I was not getting the exposures I wanted using an incident meter. Clearly it can be done since Ari's photo above has wonderful tonality, but for some reason my incident meter was giving me slight underexposure vis à vis the shadow densities I was aiming for.

Like most things in the photographic process consistency is key. Had I kept on with my incident meter I would have learned to adjust my exposure index to achieve the desired results. But I realized I wanted more information about the tonal range of my subjects for the purposes of determining N +/- development, and spot metering tells me more about the scene brightness range than a single incident reading does.

Jonathan

Jonathan,
I base my film development solely on incident readings, and over time, I've used the same variables, more or less.
It wasn't done in a scientific way, with densitometers and such, but so as to get the kinds of negatives that I like and that will scan/print well.
For example, FP4+ always gets 10,5 minutes, as long as I used an incident meter.
I didn't go to school, I learned this from the two pros I assisted early on for a number of years, so perhaps it's the "studio shortcut" or "editorial special" method of exposure and development.

[Steve French]

Appreciate your sharing of the metering information Ari and that is a great picture of the in-laws !!!